mother-In-Law

In talking with my hubby recently about our first several years of marriage, we began to realize something... his mother taught him well, as a mom she was one-of-a-kind, devoted, loyal, zany, passionate and godly.  But, when it came to her boys getting married she did one thing that wasn’t so smart.  She started in on me, “teaching” me how to love her son. 

My husband said to me, “in her defense, Lins, that was her world, taking care of her man.”  Sure.  I buy that.  I can respect that.  But one main point here, she wasn’t MY mom.  In fact, she was very different from my mom.  And the way she wanted me to behave was a total paradigm shift from the way my mom raised me. 

In fact, instead of taking time to teach her son how to love his wife and encouraging him in ways that could have fostered more understanding between her son and I, taking his defense and trying to train me in her methods of loving men only increased tensions between all three of us. 

Now, in fairness, her heart was pure and she truly loved me and she did a great job in making sure I knew her love.  My husband was right in defending her.  She did the best she could with what she knew.  The motives were great... just the method was rather off and the results falling short. 

Lesson for my hubby and I?  As the mom of two sons (so, Lord willing, a future mother-in-law to their wives), my focus needs to be on encouraging my sons in selfless love for their wives.  Here I lay down in black and white my naive vow *not to give advice unless asked (and even then to do so with utmost caution), *not to assume I’m needed, *to praise my future daughters-in-law methods of loving my sons, and, *to encourage my sons to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their wives - which in most cases will likely mean not doing things my way.  I should probably put down something about never criticizing too... but those words elude me tonight. 

To round off these thoughts, my husband didn’t hesitate to agree.  Saying, “I do wish my mom had taught me more about women and how to love a wife.”  While remaining a loyal and respectful son, he says his goal is to excel in setting an example for his boys while doing his best to train his daughter in ways to respect her future husband.

*These are totally naive vows, and will likely get revised multiple times, especially once I am in the midst of being a mother-in-law...